Dr Nundy says he is not against people coming to India for treatment they can't get in their own countries, like complicated paediatric heart surgery or a liver transplant. "What I am against is encouraging patients from western countries looking for cheap treatment. Healthcare is different from buying and selling goods. It should not be treated as a commodity. Medical tourism of this kind will distort prices in the private sector and make doctors even more greedy than they are. Market forces will be in favour of selling to western patients, and the priorities will be: first, western patients, then rich Indians and finally poor patients."
Agrees Dr Gulati: "Eighty per cent of Indian patients are dependent on private doctors andhospitals. Medical tourism will result in Indians competing for treatment with people whose incomes are 30 times higher. We must substantially and visibly improve access to state health services before we go in for medical tourism. That is the normal way." He says Thailand first created its medical infrastructure and then went for medical tourism. "If you go to a public hospital in Thailand, the quality of care is the same as in private hospitals, minus the frills. The poorest of the poor can avail of it...medical tourism is a form of export. Will you export wheat when there is a severe shortage of wheat in India?"
